My Interview with Nik Bhatia

And Gary Gensler Exposed for the Fraud that He Is

I recently had a the distinct pleasure of sitting down to speak with Nik Bhatia — author of Layered Money: From Gold and Dollars to Bitcoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies, one of my favorite books on Bitcoin — on behalf of Finder.

And not only is Nik an author, but he’s the founder of The Bitcoin Layer — a great resource for Bitcoin education — as well as an adjunct professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business, where he teaches a course on Bitcoin.

As someone with some experience teaching at universities, I was quite interested to hear about Nik’s experience teaching Bitcoin at an academic institution.

Check out what he had to say about it:

Bitcoin Price Prediction Report

I wrote Finder’s Bitcoin Price Prediction report this week.

You can read it here: “Bitcoin (BTC) price prediction 2023”

I also wrote a piece for ValueWalk in which I summarize the report.

You can read it here: “Analysts And Experts More Optimistic About The Price Of Bitcoin (BTC)”

And Yahoo! Finance covered the report, as well.

You can read their coverage here: “Bitcoin to peak at US$42,000 in 2023, end the year above US$35,000: Finder survey”

Now, I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but please note that price prediction reports are not gospel truth.

No one knows what the market will do or in what direction BTC’s price will move.

Price prediction reports simply showcase the best guesses of analysts and crypto industry professionals.

Always DYOR and invest cautiously.

Finder Cryptocurrency Adoption Index

I also updated Finder’s Cryptocurrency Adoption Index this week.

TL;DR — Unsurprisingly, the Boomies and the ladies just aren’t that into crypto.

Rent-seeking Goldman Gary Exposed for the Fraud He Is During House Testimony

This week SEC Chair Gary Gensler testified in front of the House Financial Services Committee.

When questioned by certain members of the committee, Gensler struggled to produce coherent responses — and he looked quite silly in the process.

Here’s Representative Tom Emmer steamrolling over Gensler, who doesn’t seem to have such a great memory of some of the particulars of how he’s abusively regulated the crypto industry by enforcement since becoming the head of the SEC:

Good thing Rep. Emmer had better recollection of Gensler’s ruthless actions than Gensler himself.

Here’s Patrick McHenry, the Chair of the House Financial Service Committee, simply asking Gensler to share his opinion on whether he considers Ether (ETH) to be a security or a commodity:

IMHO, the reason Gensler didn’t give a straight answer is because the ambiguity around the classification of ETH gives him leverage.

Without a proper definition of what ETH is on the books, Gensler has more of an ability to arbitrarily regulate around ETH (despite the fact that the CFTC considers ETH a commodity.)

Here’s Representative Warren Davidson discussing Gensler’s record of failures to protect investors as well as Gensler’s abuses of power:

Thank you Rep. Davidson for introducing legislation to remove Gensler. This is much needed and would be much celebrated.

And here’s the NY Department of Financial Services Superindendent, Adrienne Harris, putting Gensler in his place after he lied about the the collapses of Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank being related to crypto.

Video here.

So, will Gensler be removed from office? Probably not.

I share the above videos simply because you deserve to know as a Bitcoin/crypto investor in the US that the SEC is not working to protect you — despite the fact that you pay the salaries of these bureaucrats.

Under Gensler, the SEC is an agency of grifters who fine companies for breaking rules that aren’t even on the books — without offering these companies a way to come into compliance.

And it seems that New York State is starting to rent seek a la Gensler’s SEC.

Here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal article in the tweet above about New York regulators billing crypto firms to supervise them.

This is kind of like paying the mafia for protection as a shop owner.

But what can these companies do? Bureaucrats from the federal to the state level currently hold a lot of power, and they want their cut.

Sad to see these companies having to fork over money to these grifters.

C’est la vie — for now.

Maybe broader Bitcoin adoption will erode the power of these bureaucrats in the long run.

Probably not.

But we’ve gotta stay optimistic, right? RIGHT?!

And that, my readers, is where I leave you today.

Hope you’re all having a lovely weekend, and I hope the week ahead holds nothing but magical loveliness for all of you.

Don’t let the bureaucrats grind you down.

Best,

Frank

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